These conferences are not unlike having your palm read. There's a large amount of uncertainty that comes with the territory. Almost always, there's at least one teacher who drops some sort of curious revelation about your kid that you just didn't know. But this year it was not the teacher but my own kid that filled me in on his own scholastic scandal.
It was AFTER a middle school teacher conference, that was going really really well I might add, that I learned of a sneeky misdeed. As I left the classroom, intoxicated with relief, I made my way out into the hallway where my son pointed out HIS OWN misdeed.
He said, "Hey mom, see my math project there on the wall?" He was pointing to the math project in RED:
He went on, "That's Sev's right next to mine in green. He got a better grade than me and mine even had more detail than his."
"That happens sometimes," I reassured him.
"No mom. Look at them closer," he said.
So I looked at Connor's...
Then I looked at Sev's...
"Uhhh, Sev sure writes a lot like you do," I say.
"Yeah, well, that's cause I wrote his for him."
Huh??
He sheepishly shrugged his shoulders, "Mom, I was at his house and he had to get all his homework done before we could go outside. So I told him I'd do his math project for him so we could get done faster."
I was still staring at my son.
"Mom, that's not the bad part," the little charlatan insisted. "The bad part is that I put more work and details in mine and Sev got a better grade than me! Isn't that crazy?"
I just shook my head. The kid may not be a full blown plagiarizer just yet but from the looks of things he's teetering on the slippery slope between flippant forgery and fraud.
I may need another Alieve.
And to think, Teacher Conference had gone really well up until that point.
HILARIOUS! I'm so glad you've recorded this for posterity (unless your children decide to burn the incriminating stories at your funeral!)
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog!
This unnerves me from a teacher perspective. I don't like knowing that kids are that manipulative and sneaky. What do you think my 3rd graders were up to behind my back?
ReplyDeleteOohhh...you have NO idea Mrs. DeBeikes! Apparently they should be teaching handwriting analysis and finger printing in the teaching program. And not to worry. I forced the kid to eat vegetables all week so I'm sure he'll think long and hard before trying that stunt again. I bet if you asked him, he'd say it was not worth the extra vitamins.
ReplyDeleteI guess now you have proof that the teacher likes Sev better than your kid. I'd say she was being unfair but... well, your son IS involved in scholastic thuggery! Not that that's a bad thing - he has excellent problem-solving skills which, let's be honest, are more important in the real world that math presentation skills!
ReplyDelete